Thursday, 13 June 2013

As there are approximately 1.7 school days left in this school year, I have a few thoughts, and have learnt a few things about myself. I will start by saying that in my case, the old dog couldn't quite learn the new tricks. I was able to do what ever was expected of me, I just couldn't find enough in me to care. In the end this result is unfortunate, because I am quite capable of passing grade 12. There is just other ways I would have rather done it. As well as on a different and more appropriate schedule according to myself, which I mean makes sense to me! No matter the topic, this year I could not find the motivation anywhere. Being so close to the end, and yet having no idea where you're going to go after the end is a stressful situation let me tell ya. I feel as if the fact that it was still an in school assignment was the part that made me lack motivation the most. I don't want to learn for anyone else's sake. I don't want people to tell me I have to learn. I understand that at some point, that's what has to happen, but I feel as if i'm already past that point, and I would just like to take it by myself from here. Well from here, that would've been nice months ago.
At the end of this semester, with a different result from what I had formerly hoped for, I am going to conclude that to someone who has all sorts of issues with, and in a school setting, in the end school is school. Self based learning, or not, i'm still doing essentially what i'm being told to do, and that's exactly what a break from would be helpful.

In transactional LA, we spent a large portion of the 4th quarter studying film. I love movies, so this topic was fine by me! We took a deeper look into what makes film. The different camera angles, the lighting, the characters expressions, and even the way the setting makes whoever is watching the film feel. We practiced skills like reviewing film, and writing scripts. As a final project, we made our own short movies in assigned groups. This provided a break from in class activities which was absolutely fantastic. The assigned groups for our film project also allowed/forced the opportunity to work with some new people, and get to know a few classmates a little better just before the end of the school year. The assessment was planned to take a look at our creativity, and mainly on our ability to follow directions and write a proper script, opposed to assessing our ability as actors, and how good our films are. Making a short movie was an adventure. Although resources were quite limited, and the budgets were a little small, it was a worth while project. After our film studies unit, whenever i'm watching something that has been manually filmed, I can't help but pay attention to all the little details and thoughts that went into planning a shot, or scene.

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

I'm going to take the focus of this learning log away from solely being about what's happening in the LA Comp class, to more of school as a whole presently in my life. Being so close to graduation, the excitement is getting to me a little too much and school is slipping away. I have been getting distracted by other things, and putting too much time and energy into everything but my schoolwork. Thinking about how soon this will all be over, and yet not having any idea about how my next years are going to play out was helping me put off assignments for weeks in some cases.

In the midst of all this, I am learning that putting things off, such as my schoolwork, does not in fact give you more time for other things. It does in fact make your future schedule busier than it needs to be, and create tension and stress for not only me, but my teachers as well!

With that being said, as a graduating student, with the time I have left I will be working on staying on top of things, and set back the level of my procrastination on things including: my poetry assignments, PCRs, Learning Logs, and reading the assigned books.

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

The first week back to school after a break is always a mess, but I have never experienced three weeks away mid semester before, and I can say with confidence I never want to do that again. Jumping right back into writing papers, and reading multiple books right off the hop made my brain go insane! Nevertheless, I found a way to get a few things accomplished.

For my passion project, I originally thought I would simply write a research paper on the origin of ear stretching. For a couple of years, if someone didn't remember my name, 'the guy with big ears' would have just the same effect as remembering me as 'Owen'. As i sat in class about a month ago, while sliding my pen in and out of my earlobe, we were asked to think of things we would like to know, questions we had. As i realized where my pen was, I thought why did people ever do this? So I looked into it. As I looked into it, I realized what is simply a fashion or self expression statement for me, has a history of thousands of years and symbolizes different things. What I find interesting about it is that many different cultures and foreign tribes originally stretched their ears for many different purposes, without knowing others were doing the same thing. Some cultures used it to symbolize wealth, others for knowledge, and some even to symbolize their marital status.

Being something that arose thousands of years ago, with no direct origin, I decided a switch of outcomes was in order. I felt a research paper was too restricting. With finding all this information, and intriguing pictures I want to be able to display, I think that a print article, possibly just an online article is more fitting.

We have discussed in class how the slightly unorganized, yet organized format of this class is more fitting to real life. In this first week and a bit back to school, I have really appreciated the schedule this project allows me because not only does life happen, but other courses happen. As my work load continues to increase, I feel my time would be better spent writing papers, rather than blog posts.

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Week 3 is now over, and if you read my first post, I'm not much further than topic ideas. If you haven't read my first post, we are basically exploring a new way of education that allows us to learn on a subject of our choice, as long as we demonstrate our learning with specific outcomes.

One thing thinking about this has made me realize is that I don't feel like I'm legitimately interested in, or passionate about much. That's not saying I think I know a lot of things, it's saying that I just don't feel like a curious person. It also plays off of the motivation thing I touched on in my last post, which may start lacking as the excitement towards graduation starts to build up.

Poems are continuing to be read on a daily basis in our class. We have been reviewing terms such as: alliteration, metaphor, enjambment, and other words that should come in a standard poetic toolkit. Our class is also reading Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950s. This is my first experience with dystopian literature. This semester has shown me how much i enjoy group discussions, because in each one of my courses, I am reading some sort of literature from short stories, to fiction novels, and christian non-fiction, having an updated discussion at least bi-daily.

Something that is being stressed in each of my classes taught by Mr Hazeu is the importance of asking questions. I agree with this, because a good question allows for 'good' learning. This also forces my peers and I to look deeper into the text for meaning, which will in time develop our literary skills.

Sunday, 24 February 2013

These first couple of weeks in the second semester we have been toying around with a sort of independent, yet group learning idea. From day one I was skeptical. Not skeptical because I thought it was a bad idea, but skeptical because it's not the norm. Skeptical because for the entirety of my life as a student I've been told what to do, leaving it as my decision whether i was going to do it, or not. Now all of a sudden, in my final year of high school, my teacher essentially says- "how would you feel about learning about what ever you want?".

I got to thinking about it, and now feel overwhelmed with the fact I cannot decide what I want to learn about! With all of these possibilities running through my head, i ask questions like; is that school appropriate? Do i really want to know that more than this? Being so close to graduation, I don't know if i have the motivation to come up with my own projects or assignments, let alone do them!

If this idea would have been introduced before my last semester, I would have been all over it! I still think it's a great idea, and am for sure going to give it a try. If it shows signs of being something successful, maybe the education system has a place for this in the future! If not, we know the old monkey say, monkey do method works every now and again, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Now for things I've actually learnt so far in this Comprehensive LA course. We have commit ourselves to using the internet and the resources it supplies us as an advantage. This whole blogging thing is new to me, ergo it is something i have learnt. We have also been casually reading poetry as a class, followed by a discussion. Something that has shown me is that an audience is made up of different minds, which means that when a poem is read, certain lines or even just a word, could be given a completely different meaning by each member of the audience.

I guess that has been the past couple weeks as a COMP student for me. I'm excited to see where this will end up!

Donald Miller is a great story teller, and his ability to recall dialogue in detail impresses me. In Blue Like Jazz, he talks so highly of his father, which confuses me. If i had only seen my father three in times in my life, and things that reminded me of him were mostly scents of alcohol, I would be rather pissed off. Also, if Miller thinks so highly of his father, why would he struggle with the idea of God being our 'father'? I understand that his father was not necessarily a physical presence, but I don't need two hands to count the amount of times i have physically seen God.

Through out the book, he has consistently makes little humorous comments that amuse me, such as- "Girls start to sin when they are 23 or something", and "It is a pretty good idea to make noises when you are at a play."

I am on the fence about his idea exploring how sunday school turns the bible into a children's book by leaving out significant details. On one hand i know that kids in a christian home should grow up with some stories to have an idea of who this God character actually is, and i know that drowning the entire population is something they shouldn't visualize. On the other hand, I think kids should know just how serious this religion thing is. They should know how powerful our God is, and what he is capable of.

Millers word choice in the second chapter when he talks about himself realizing that the problem with the world starts with himself is phenomenal. That sudden realization that you are a part of the worlds problems is one most people make, and instead of writing a song about it (Michael Jackson), he included it in one of his books. It is definitely an important realization, and i'm curious as to what he changed about himself to help solve the problem, if anything at all.